This week has not been all that great. I am suffering through the day here and struggling just to not resort to laying on the couch and pretending like I have nothing to do today. These past few weeks, the girls and I have been saying, daily, Psalms 23. We say it twice a day. It’s mainly for school, but also because I want them to learn scripture.
If you can imagine being crabby and having a bad day and then enters my 3 year old son. It’s hard to stay unhappy for very long, although he sometimes is one who causes the unhappiness around here. Certainly, he has his moments of fit throwing, potty accidents, and sassing his mom. But this morning wasn’t one of them, so me being unhappy towards him seemed to melt quite quickly. He was walking around with his legos and he kept repeating “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters”. He didn’t just say it once. He said it like 10 times – the same 2 sentences.
It got me thinking. This child of 3, who has many reasons to throw a fit or pout or demand his own way right now is happy. He might not understand the verse completely. Someday he will. Someday he will have his own bad days and his own struggles and this verse, I hope, will pop into his head. It’s so easy for me to feel like my job is pointless. It’s so easy for me to look around and see the mess and think “what is all this even for?” But today, I happened to look around and hear the words that are being planted in his tiny heart that is so full of love for me. I saw a glimpse of what this little boy is picking up without me even making him learn it.
Someday other voices are going to try to drown out that still, small voice. Someday soon, it will be harder to hear. Those words will never leave him though. They will always be there, like a record that needs to be dusted off to be played again. And someday, when he is facing the most devastating thing in his world, he will remember how, maybe vaguely, that his mom and his sisters repeated Psalms 23 and the words will be in his heart and he will know. He will know that God is near.
What was it all for? Not for my glory. Not for his. Not to make him into a robot. Not that he will play his part well. Not that I will be mother of the year. No, not any of those things. My hope and prayer is that it was all to bring glory to God and that the life of my son will someday reflect Jesus as His personal treasure. I never memorized scripture growing up, but my son will.
1 Corinthians 3:7-9 says, “So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.“ My children are God’s building. All I can do is my part. That is what it is all for. The foundation is being planted. As he grows, he will be watered. If it is God’s will, He will make him grow. That is my purpose. Will I do it well?
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